Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision

 (Summer in the City's signature sun mural, facing Evans Street)

Phoenix Academy has been notorious for being tagged with graffiti constantly. SDEV made several efforts to help beautify and clean up the school along with the help from science teacher Kerry Girardin. Our first effort there this spring, was with the 7th grade science classes, and we did a clean up on the school grounds and in the surrounding neighborhood, we were also somewhat successful with cleaning the windows to remove some of the graffiti off of the plexiglass, and we painted all of the doors around the school to cover up the graffiti. Our next effort there was with a youth group we had for the week (Young Neighbors in Action, or YNIA) and we did the same thing, because they had tagged everything all over again, only this time we had less students. Painting over graffiti with one color is almost like giving these taggers a blank canvas to put graffiti all over. The group Summer in the City came along and made Phoenix one of their big projects also. They painted murals all around the school to prevent future graffiti tagging. In fact, once the murals went up the only walls that were tagged were the ones that did not have murals on it. SDEV was fortunate enough to participate with Summer in the City in one of their last weeks of the summer. We did not assist with any of the murals that went around the school, but we did repaint the wall of the auto shop in the back which faces the school. Overall Phoenix became a cleaner, more beautiful school this summer to benefit the students, the faculity and their families, and Summer in the City plans on continuing their work there next year.

Our Clean and Green Program now has a new focus working with schools, and the three focal schools we are starting with are: O.W. Holmes, Phoenix Academy, and Priest Elementary.

In April SDEV worked with The Greening of Detroit and O.W. Holmes spring kickoff of the After School Garden Program. Many children participated in cleaning-up Romanowski Park and learning about what kind of trash is recyclable, among many activities organized that day for the students.

For Motor CIty Makeover in May we partnered with Priest Elementary for a school clean-up event which included around 500 students, teachers, and parents! The 5th graders managed to pull around 20 tires from an alley in front of the school, among other illegally dumped items. Thanks to Ms. Linda Keteyian for all of her help getting things organized.

Higgins School Environmental Empowerment Club, an after school group at Higgins Elementary School explores community needs and solutions. Some examples of activities they have done are tours of their neighborhood to problem-solve solutions to environmental issues, view contaminated sites in Southwest Detroit, and see Crosswinds Marsh. They have also visited Michigan State University to learn about soil and water testing. Each summer they continue work on their growing gardens, that now include a butterfly garden, native plantings, and a memorial garden for a fellow student. Students involved in the club put out a newsletter for fellow students as well as tutor their peers. Other local schools we have worked with include Maybury, Harms, Academy of the Americas, and Bennett Elementary schools.